JISHOU, HUNAN — Dr. Isis at Scienceblogs.com has published a few more letters from women scientists, as part of her “Letters to Our Daughters Project.”
The daughters are not necessarily the scientists’ biological daughters, by the way. Isis wants young female scientists-in-training to stay the course, get their degrees and begin science careers. As a former high school science teacher, I’m blogging about these letters because they contain sound advice for teenaged science students, too. Girls can be scientists, without giving up romance, motherhood, or … shopping.
The third letter in the series is by Wendee Holtcamp, a free-lance science journalist who blogs at Animal Planet and has written for Scientific American and other big time publications. She reminisces about the doubts of others around her whether she could or should pursue a doctoral degree.
It seems that the higher I climb up the totem pole of success, the more resistance I encounter. Whatever happened to those feel-good messages from kindergarten: You can be anything you want to be! Girls can do anything boys can! Go make your dreams come true!
What I’m discovering as I journey toward my doctorate is that while women may cheer our abundant opportunities in the 21st century, equal opportunity does not always mean equal treatment. The little voices of doubt rattle around at the back of my mind.
Dr. Janet Stemwedel (aka Dr. Free-Ride), who also blogs at Scienceblogs.com, holds two doctoral degrees in chemistry and philosophy. She is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Not surprisingly, her letter is more, well, philosophical.
Please trust me that putting yourself out to learn how to do science — and doing actual science as you are learning this — is a worthy end in itself. Building understanding, even if it’s just your own, is a good thing, whether or not you end up deciding to make doing science your life’s work. And deciding to make something else your life’s work does not undo what you’ve learned, nor what you’ve contributed to building new chunks of knowledge, nor what you may have contributed to the experiences of your colleagues climbing up the learning curve.
You can still love science and see other pursuits. Science can handle that kind of relationship, and your happiness matters.
If you decide that you want doing science to be your life’s work — if it feels like science is making a claim on your heart — the perennial problems of the job market may present daunting challenges.
Don’t give up.
On a more practical note, Dr. Pamela Carmines puts a new spin on the phrase “just say no” in her missive. A renal physiologist at the University of Nebraska, Dr. Carmines talks about the “flip side of sexism” — female profs get too many committee assignments as higher-ups attempt to have women members on every dad-blamed committee.
She advises:
The usual consequence of an excessive committee load for women faculty members is that they have less time available for generating hot science, papers and GRANTS! These women’s careers are adversely affected. A few years ago, I pointed out to my chair that I had been appointed to 3 departmental committees (I was the only woman faculty member in the department), and I asked if this workload could be spread more broadly as, after all, some faculty members were not on any committees. He responded, “Really? Who?” I mentioned several names, and he looked at the assignment list in complete amazement… Within a couple of days, a revised list of committee assignments was produced, and the time available for my scholarly activities increased simultaneously. Sometimes, you just need to open their eyes in order to advance your career. Otherwise, just say “No.”
[Editorial aside: this advice can be offered to any young faculty member at any institution, including high schools. Newly hired teachers are eager to show their enthusiasm and hard work; the administrators are more than happy to take advantage of such youthful zeal. Avoid burnout: know when to say no.]
Dr. Hannah Carey is a former president of the American Physiology Society. She advises aspiring female scientists to find mentors and build a network of supportive colleagues and friends by getting involved in professional organizations. Her advice balances that of Dr. Carmines’.
One excellent way to increase the probability of bumping into those mentors who help shape your academic life is to become actively engaged in the larger scientific community. This made a lot of sense to me early on because let’s face it, I’m a science lover and I like to hang around with others of my kind. The person who first handed me the magic key to scientific engagement was my superb postdoc mentor, Helen Cooke, who took me under her wing as a nascent physiologist and pointed me straight towards the American Physiological Society. It soon became clear I had found my scientific home. My involvement with the APS started as a trainee member of a committee (the Women in Physiology Committee), and lo and behold, I eventually made my way to the top…I recently finished a term as President (the third woman to hold the position since 1887). It was an amazing, challenging, time-consuming and utterly worthwhile experience, aided in large part by my favorite executive director and science pal, Marty Frank.
Another letter-writer is in my favorite scientific field, astronomy: Dr. Hannah Jang-Condell, a Harvard-educated researcher who is a Michelson Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She also blogs.
Dr. Jong-Condell decided to start a family while still in graduate school, and confesses that, at the time, she felt like she was the only graduate student/mother in the world. A senior faculty member encouraged her to keep on her career path, despite the difficulties of juggling babies and studies. Like Carey, Jong-Condell advises young scientists to network.
So work your network. Remember, networking is not just about buttering up muckity-mucks to increase your profile. It’s also about getting to know people who share your experiences, and also about simply making friends. Academia can be very isolating, especially if you’re part of a minority group, like a woman or a mother. Luckily, in this day and age the internet makes it so much easier to connect to other people. I wish blogs like Isis’ had been around when my kids were born. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help or advice. Those of us who know what it feels like to be alone are happy to help you out.
[Editorial aside #2: In China, starting a family, much less finding and having a boyfriend, is a goal that many women in China postpone until AFTER they complete their studies. My friends here tell me that female PhDs then find it difficult to find husbands, since traditional Chinese men don't want to marry women as accomplished as or smarter than they are. A physics graduate student, age 25, asked me quite sincerely whether I thought it was possible to her to have a boyfriend while also pursuing her degree. I told her to cultivate her romance and her career at the same time. I still cannot fathom the way Chinese segregate romantic relationships and studies.]
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